


Target Practice

by BlueTwo



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Claude, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29572227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueTwo/pseuds/BlueTwo
Summary: Claude doesn't fancy himself Cupid, and he's certainly not immune to love's charms— or its bickering.A private moment at the monastery.
Relationships: Lorenz Hellman Gloucester/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 9
Kudos: 77





	Target Practice

**Author's Note:**

> long time no see whoops. this is for my amazing friends who have not bullied me (even though i would have deserved it) for not posting fic in almost a year.

Claude never found the monastery to be a particularly beautiful place. The distant arches, cool stone, and square parapets glower rather than welcome, a great fortress as stalwart and iron-fisted as the Church. No amount of hazy sun through intricate stained glass could distract him from the cornerstones laid on bodies and blood. 

But outside, on the tower roofs, where the mountains and forests of Fódlan stretch as far as the horizon while the sun dips below it— the land itself sings to him, reflected in his blood, his crest. From the sky, the folly of greed and power seem so small. There is growth. Potential. Up here, he understands the ghost of longing he would see in his mother’s eyes when she sometimes spoke of home.

Gazing down, cheek propped on his fist, he also understands why she left. 

Below, Lorenz braces his peach-soft noble palms on the rough-hewn balcony stone. The sunset bathes him in warm, golden light. It suits him: soaks his lithe silhouette like cloth dyed in hot water, gilds his violet countenance in reverent embroidery. The weavers at home are artisans, knobbed fingers deftly constructing masterpieces into cloth. He wishes he could frame this moment in time for them, so they could reconstruct it, tangibly, to mirror the same loving detail with which it will linger in his mind. 

As he absently twirls an arrow in his free hand, cheek lazily smushed on the other, Claude could sit there forever watching him. For once, his constantly churning thoughts mellow to a trickling stream. Placid, serene— peace of mind so sound that it takes him a moment to realize Lorenz is speaking to him. 

“Are you going to properly take aim, or merely taunt me with the possibility?” Lorenz asks calmly, having spotted him. His usual sour note of judgment is absent, perhaps sweetened by the sunset as well. 

Claude looks down at the arrow in his hand and quickly stills his fidgeting. “I didn’t bring my bow.” 

“A small mercy,” Lorenz says, turning back to the horizon. Claude itches to fill the silence, perhaps with some light teasing, unsure of Lorenz’s mood. But then Lorenz cuts him off, and recites: “On Cupid’s bow how are my heartstrings bent / That see my wrack, yet embrace the same?”

“I have a hard time believing that it took this long for Cupid to get the better of you,” Claude jokes hollowly. No wonder Lorenz seems different. Claude has seen him in distress, infatuated, incandescent— but despite all the time they’ve known each other, and all of Lorenz’s attempts otherwise, he has never seen him in love. 

“It was nothing so sudden, nor Cupid himself.” 

“But you just said—”

“It’s a _poem_ , Claude.”

“‘Scholar,’ saith Love, ‘bend hitherward your wit.’”

Lorenz’s mouth falls open, ungainly and absolutely endearing. “You know it?”

“I like poetry.”

Lorenz clears his throat. “As do I.” 

“I know,” Claude says, smug but not unkind. “Kind of hard to miss you composing your own sonnets in the gardens every other day.” 

“Certainly not! How dare you suggest I might neglect my duties for such frequent fancy— I would never—” The dying light spares Lorenz the intensity of his usual blush, but Claude imagines it anyway, a riot of watercolor dripped onto canvas and darker with intention. 

Claude seizes the opportunity of Lorenz’s floundering to slide down off the roof and leap the small distance to the keep below. Lorenz stammers more, but finds his voice, albeit short of breath. “You’ll injure yourself— your knees—” 

“Lorenz,” Claude says fondly. “I didn’t realize how much you valued my knees. Have you thought of them? Of me using them, maybe? Any particular fantasies?”

“ _Claude_.” Lorenz says it in that silly, authoritative way of his, but the distress on his face, in the fluttering of his hands, says otherwise. He rallies with a pained sniff. “The only time I have _ever_ imagined you on your knees is begging forgiveness for your antics that drive me to distraction.” 

“Oh,” Claude says, feigning disappointment, because thankfully, Lorenz is transparent as glass. But Claude doesn’t mind pushing, either, because he knows Lorenz is not so easily shattered. “Then maybe I can show you what I had in mind. It’s a little different. No less distracting, though.” He grins, showing more of his teeth than comes naturally. “Well— if I do it right, that is.”

Lorenz blinks rapidly, like he might faint. Like he can’t quite believe what he just heard. 

Okay, maybe Claude could stand to cool it a little. If only for the sake of Lorenz’s delicate, noble sensibilities.

“I am not delicate!” Lorenz snaps, regaining himself. 

Claude spins the arrow between his fingers one last full turn and uses the feathered end to twitch the silky fall of Lorenz’s hair out of his face. “Sensitive, then.” 

Lorenz’s hand shoots up to shoo away Claude’s touch. It’s ineffectual, half-hearted. “ _Must_ you insult me?” 

The sharp point of the arrow aimed at his own chest taunts him, fool that he is for this ridiculous boy. “It’s not a bad thing.”

Suddenly, Lorenz looks terribly uncertain. Vulnerable. _Delicate_ , Claude’s mind whispers again. “It sounds like it. A Gloucester has too many responsibilities to be— to be soft.”

Claude hums. “It’s not always better to be hard,” he says sagely.He taps the end of his arrow on Lorenz’s nose, making his eyes cross as he huffs and jerks back. “Though in certain instances, Cupid himself recommends—”

Lorenz scoffs and slaps the arrow away, shoulders hunched as he shoves past Claude. He hears, under Lorenz’s noble breath, some decidedly ignoble curses. “Can’t be serious for more than a single moment in time and yet he expects—!” 

The echo of the heavy wood of the monastery door slamming shut behind him startles a few of the birds alit on the grooves of the parapet. Claude’s laughter scares them away fully, but the last dregs of sun are vanishing anyway, and it’s time for them to return to their roosts. He tucks his arrow jauntily behind his ear and follows Lorenz inside, both step and heart light.

**Author's Note:**

> :)


End file.
